Embodiments herein generally relate to printing devices and printing methods and more particularly to providing additional types of print media beyond those currently present in the physical media trays by using virtual media trays.
Today the number of currently available media types for a printer (or multi-function device (MFD)) is limited by the number of physical input trays within the printer. For example, a device with four physical trays can only present four different media type options to the user under the printing options. Therefore, a user needs to physically place media that matches the print job requirements in one of the media trays to be able to print on the desired media. For example, if a user submits a print job that requires 8.5×11 drilled pink media, one of the trays must physically contain 8.5×11 drilled pink media sheets, or the job will be held. The job will not proceed until the requested media is loaded. Whether a print job proceeds can be addressed with attribute fidelity where, if fidelity is not set for a job (or fidelity is false) the printer will attempt to mark on the closest available media.